Particularly the Michael Mignano photo makes you wonder whether it is an attempt to impress someone. The photo leaves me with more questions than answers: All amps, no sources? Hidden 2" ceiling speakers? Do they run Spotify through that?
I agree it’s exciting—I have Spotify and Qobuz now and use Spotify for all casual listening networked through the house with Chromecast and nest minis (the voice command is pretty awesome, I’ve learned). Still, I do love Roon and I don’t ever see that happening here so I might hold on to Qobuz for that alone + the hi-res downloads.
Moving Spotify up to CD quality is a small step in the right direction, no more, no less. For me and my purposes, that’s all the quality they ever need to have. Their existing “high quality” setting is more than high quality enough for me to sample new artists. I’d pay more for Spotify in general, because the value it provides me is substantial, but I don’t necessarily want to pay more just to have SACD quality every time I get the urge to listen to some random Police album I don’t own.
It is possible to have a product that simultaneously appeals to the general public while also offering upgrades/features for a niche audience. As for "mastered for iTunes," I don't really buy into that mattering a lick. (And I'm an Apple Music subscriber since launch). I mean, I can listen to the excellent new Haim album and it's the same crappy mastering whether it's "mastered for iTunes" or mastered for anything else. But as for a lossless streaming tier, I don't think it's directed at the "general public." I mean, it is, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten a major star in the announcement, but I imagine if they get even 5-10% adoption of the higher priced tier among current subscribers (a totally reasonable goal), it will be a success.
I pay extra for 4K Netflix. In a world where lots of people pay a premium for high quality video streaming, I’m sure Spotify can get at least 10% buy-in on CD quality audio streaming, as you note.
Yeah. It's a niche...I mean, honestly, the difference isn't really pronounced, especially given the genres of music the majority of people listen to. But there are still lots of people who stream a lot of classical, jazz, soundtracks, ambient, etc, and I think enough of them will pay the increase to make it worthwhile. Even 5% of their premium subscriber base would be 7 million people, so at a $5/mo. add-on, that's an extra $35 million of revenue per month.
No they didn’t. Deezer started in 2007. They didn’t have a HiFi tier until 2014 which was limited to Sonos devices before they expanded it. Qobuz may have started from day 1 but I don’t see any info. about that however they also started in 2007. Spotify started in 2008. Only took them 13 years (shame) to catch up and if they are only going to offer CD resolution they are still behind because a lot of new releases online are in 24 bit which is more than CD’s 16.
The masters/re-masters used are still mostly garbage? The selection from almost every artists is incomplete? Still lack of deals with many speciality labels. Expiring license deals for older releases happening left and right. And I'm saying this as a spotify user. It will never replace physical ownership (discs or files).
I can't hear the difference between a 24/96 file and said file downsampled to 16/48, sorry. I mean, i think it's cool that hi-res audio exists, and I'd be happy to see all streaming go to that format one day, but as practical matter, CD-res is absolutely fine for me.
Now if they only add Flamin Groovies debut album we might be getting somewhere. And Tom Petty's Playback. And a dissected version of Lovesexy. And Intrada and Varese Sarabande releases. and... an... a...
The masters are supplied by the labels. For many artists, there is a choice between different masterings, if you care about that and know what you’re looking for. I’m sure for the superfans on this forum, no selection will ever be good enough. For me, I got a little Ornette Coleman kick last week and was able to check out the albums of his that interested me on Spotify, no problem, even though his two Golden Circle albums are missing, I think. But I was able to listen to Shape of Jazz to Come and his other Atlantic albums. He’s not exactly a super mainstream artist these days, but I’m sure there’s always some even more niche artist that’s missing from Spotify that ruins the service for you. For me, not so much. As I stated above, I don’t use the service or want to use the service as a replacement for physical ownership of discs, so that’s not a problem for me. I use the service to supplement my record collection and explore artists that are new to me. If you want argue about the straw man of someone using Spotify to completely replace physical media ownership, find someone else to have that debate with.
Listen to this podcast for inside information on how things work inside a music streaming company: Audiophile Style Podcast: Episode 6 | Qobuz Interview
Was the streaming naysayer you took to task not a straw man? I never hear any anti-streaming rhetoric that solely focus on audio quality.
I was responding to the statement that streaming will never replace physical ownership of discs. I agree. For me, that’s not how I use streaming. It’s a (very useful) supplement to physical ownership of discs.
been waiting for this. Spotify user interface is so much better than tidal and qobuz. Ill happily pay an extra 5 or 10 pounds for it. 95% of my qobuz listening is cd quality anyway rather than "hi res". will be cancelling my Qobuz as soon as this is available mainly down to their awful user interface on the app.
I’m not amazed by the many strong arguments for the soundness of the streaming business model led by the Spotify disruption, to the satisfaction of many stakeholders, including blockbuster and best-selling artists, and consumers happy with the commodification of music consumption. It does surprise how much complacency and indignant self-righteousness Spotify’s defenders bring to the argument, as if the legal but in many ways grotesque things Spotify has done to musicians and to listeners’ conception of the value of music are not merely a brutal and cunning Facebooking of music, but represent something admirable and fundamentally ethical. I recognize Spotify’s achievements but don’t ask me to give it my submissive approbation. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I'm likely to stay with Qobuz, but this is a GOOD THING. I hope that Apple is forced into the same decision soon. There is no reason to continue with lossy formats now that bandwidth costs are where they are.
The genie was out of the bottle with Napster. At least now people are paying for their “free” music on the Internet. As we pontificate about fairness on the Internet, we can’t pretend the Internet doesn’t exist. Spotify is a legal service with over 100 million subscribers paying a monthly fee for legally licensed music from the legal rights holders to that music. Sorry the world doesn’t work exactly the way we may think it should work and that the $18.98 CD business model didn’t last forever.
See, I am way more down with this — “Well, the world is a s****y place and it’s sort of a shame but could have been worse” — than with people indignantly telling me “I for one salute the clean and elegant first-mover dominance and now immovable installed base built by our kind and well-intentioned Nordic overlords.”
